Charity

Trust - for education of public in demilitarisation - application for charitable statusSouthwood and Another v Attorney-General: CA (Kennedy, Chadwick and May LJJ):28 June 2000

The claimants were trustees of a trust, the Project of Demilitarisation ('Prodem'), set up in 1994.

Prodem's objects were 'the advancement of the education of the public in the subject of militarism and disarmament and related fields'.Its aims included the fundamental questioning of new forms of militarism arising in the West and the proposing of alternative policies to achieve disarmament and a conversion of resources from military to civilian purposes.The Charity Commissioners refused Prodem's application for charitable status.

Carnwath J upheld that decision.

The claimants appealed.Dr Peter Southwood, in person, for the claimants.

Ross Cranston QC, S-G, and William Henderson (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) for the Attorney-General.Held, dismissing the appeal, that the trust could not be recognised as charitable unless its objects promoted public benefit, and if it could not be determined whether or not the objects did promote public benefit, the trust was not charitable; that the trustees intended to educate the public in their own views on the evils of militarism, the need for disarmament and the curtailment of NATO; that although peace was generally preferable to war, the promotion of pacifism was not necessarily charitable; that the court could not determine whether the promotion of one particular view rather than another on how best to secure peace and avoid war was for the public benefit; that to attempt to do so would be to usurp the role of government; and that, accordingly, the court could not recognise as charitable a trust to educate the public to an acceptance that peace was best secured by demilitarisation.